Shiny Layers

One year ago you entered the world.  Your entrance was relatively quiet, quick, and with minimal fanfare.  Heart tugging lyrics from The Cure sauntered in the background ... or was it Tom Petty? The overwhelming anticipation of your arrival has blurred our auditory recall so we'll never really know for sure which 80's pop tune enveloped us at that moment but it doesn't matter.

You showed up.  You accepted your admittance to the human race.  You came to do what we are all here to do: live, love, laugh, learn, try, fail, hurt, heal, hope, believe.

Feel.

You began your life in the best way I can imagine.  Curled onto my chest for the better part of an hour.  The weight of you like an anchor pinning my soul into place once again. Centered and at peace I could breathe deeply and wholly for the first time in nine months.  The outside simply went away and it was just you and me kid.

The last year has been pure joy watching you grow.  A treasure.  I have inklings of who you are. Little glimmers of your spirit that shine through.  Flirtatious eyes, wicked grins, insatiable curiosity, and tender touches.  But like most babies in the first year you mostly remain a mystery to me.  The fact that I truly don't know you yet is simply thrilling.  You are like a surprise gift with multiple layers of wrapping, each tearing off to reveal another beautiful wrapping, shinier and with a different pattern than the last.  It's like Christmas morning every day but I have yet to uncover the actual gift. The complete gift of you.

More than anything this year has been about what you have done for me.  How you have redirected me. My heart is much bigger now.  It has more rooms for feeling and reflecting. You've stretched my old sense of time and space and things are not so fast anymore.  I move slower with you, savoring. I drink in your sweet breath.  I listen longer.  I watch longer. I laugh longer.  I sense a present moment more easily and stay to linger in its rarity.  I breathe more deeply.  I stop.

I feel.

I needed these things in my life.  I needed something to catch me, hold me, and ground me.  I needed a new pair of little eyes to peer into mine and remind me to put more pressure on the brakes.  To give myself permission to amble through these tender years, admit and forgive my shortcomings, sing and dance my praises, reach out and grasp those who really know me, and explore who I truly am.

Nothing is perfect and I'm learning that I don't want perfection.  Good days, bad days, I'm a work in progress, learning as I go and that feels right.  Freeing.

So thank you sweet boy, for bringing me back to my path.  Let's walk it together.